Void Of Vision On Their Final Tour: 'It's A Nice Legacy To Leave Behind'

When Melbourne metallers Void Of Vision released their album What I’ll Leave Behind last September, they didn’t know it would mark the beginning of the end—despite what the title suggests.

“I know how it looks,” vocalist Jack Bergin laughs over Zoom, catching up with The Music ahead of the band’s final Australian tour. “It’s very funny to see it in the way it is. The title… I know it’s very Bowie to put something out like that.”

The band’s fourth album, What I’ll Leave Behind, was born while Bergin was pondering big life questions he hadn’t previously thought about.

In April 2023, the vocalist announced that he’d be taking a break from touring as he’d been hospitalised with a ruptured Cerebral arteriovenous malformation. A condition many wouldn’t have heard of unless they’ve seen Nate Fisher’s character arc in Six Feet Under, cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are tangles of blood vessels that cause abnormal artery-to-vein connections in the brain. If they rupture, an AVM can cause brain damage or a stroke.

He also opened up about a near-death experience he had in January 2022, where he woke up in an ambulance after experiencing a nocturnal seizure. After that experience, Bergin had to give up alcohol and driving due to being on strong epilepsy medication to prevent nocturnal seizures until he could have radiotherapy to treat the AVM. He also ended up writing one of the band’s most striking songs, Gamma Knife.

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When asked just how much the AVM has changed his life, Bergin is candid, admitting that it’s been a “difficult pill to swallow” and affected him for the best and the worst, offering him a new perspective on life.

“It’s insane. For something that I never saw coming—A lot of what this whole process was about was me realising, like, ‘Damn. My life has kind of been split because I’m not too sure where my future lies,’” he admits. “Health-wise, I’m in radiotherapy at the moment, and results haven’t been moving as quickly as I would have hoped or the band would have hoped.”

He continues, “It’s been a really difficult pill to swallow because obviously, doing this whole wrap-up of the band was to benefit myself, health-wise. I didn’t know where I’d belong in music if I wasn’t performing; it’s an interesting way to view it all that has changed my life in such crazy ways that I never would have thought possible: for the better and the worse.

“Moreso the better, to be honest, because I feel like I’ve never taken life seriously as I have now, and I’ve been taking stuff for granted for a long time—I haven’t stopped to smell the roses. It’s been a nice, refreshing change to actually do that for once and not take everything for granted. And yeah, just move on positively and love life and live life as much as I can.”

While Bergin feels that time has disappeared in front of him, he still has keen memories of the time Void Of Vision performed at the inaugural Knotfest Australia in March 2023. “That was definitely the craziest weekend of our lives; that was just so much fun,” he grins, praising Knotfest organisers for running such a smooth event and bringing Spiritbox to Australia for the first time.

“It was such a successful festival that ran so smoothly. I’ve been talking about how I didn’t stop and smell the roses enough in our career at some stages, but that one, I remember just lapping it up and absolutely loving it. It was such a special thing to be a part of. I’ll never forget playing to those crowds in the morning—it was absolutely insane to have that privilege. It was so much fun, and so we should do it all again [laughs].”

This month, Void Of Vision are hitting stages across the country for the final time. Has the magnitude of that statement actually sunk in?

“It’s definitely sunk in now. Prep-wise, we finished up the setlist yesterday, so we’re [dealing with] the lighting and everything now, and it’s crazy,” Bergin shares. “I was listening to the set in its entirety, and just being like, ‘Damn, I’ve forgotten some of the words for these old songs [laughs’. But it’s very emotional to play all these old songs because a couple of them we haven’t touched in a long time. And you’re thinking, ‘This is something I did when I was, like, 21 or 18. Fuck, time has just escaped me yet again.’

“It’s a lot of fun to be looking back on all this stuff. I think we’ve all fully processed the decision-making and wrapping everything up, and now it’s just [the tour]. I can feel the excitement lifting in the camp; everyone’s just excited to rip it one last time and just go out with a bang. I know it’s going to be the last, but I don’t think we’ve ever been more excited for something.”

After forming in 2013, Void Of Vision established a dedicated fanbase hungry for their explosive, energetic brand of metalcore. Throughout their career, they’ve toured with big names like Slipknot, Parkway Drive, I Prevail, and more. The band got to release four albums in the streaming era: 2016’s Children Of Chrome, 2019’s Hyperdaze, 2023’s Chronicles, and last year’s What I’ll Leave Behind.

As for what comes next for his bandmates, Bergin says everyone will be “sticking around.”

He says guitarist James McKendrick is a “wizard” at working with bands’ crews and has recently worked with fellow Aussie heavyweights Make Them Suffer. Meanwhile, drummer George Pfaendner has become a “wiz with accounting and finances and stuff.” And Bergin? Well, he had to remain tight-lipped at the time of this chat, but it’s since been reported that he’s the host of triple j’s new heavy music program, CORE. “I’m going to be sticking around for a little bit,” he chuckles.

But first, one last tour to say farewell to what the band is leaving behind.

With What I’ll Leave Behind, Bergin was piecing his brain together for the first time. “It was fucking crazy, and after dealing with all the health stuff, it birthed a lot of grandiose questions and stuff that we could talk about,” he explains. One of those questions revolved around the future of the band.

Upon reflecting on the album, Bergin and his bandmates believe What I’ll Leave Behind is their “most important” record.

It’s an incredible piece of art that doesn’t just track the last few years of Bergin’s health struggles but the band’s evolution. It’s the most confident they’ve sounded while utilising electronic music elements (Blood For Blood), flirted with nu-metal (the crunchy guitars on Empty), and even experimented with getting a little sensual (Neurotic).

It’s an example of a band taking the lessons learned from the bands that came before them, like Parkway Drive, The Amity Affliction, and Northlane, and realising that they can be that ambitious, too. And it pays off.

“It’s our favourite piece of work we’ve ever done,” Bergin affirms. “And I can’t think of a better way to wrap this all up: a record like that, the biggest tour we’ve ever done, [and] tick off those bucket lists, like doing the Parkway tour and everything, it’s been such an awesome experience putting this record out, and very special to us.”

It’s also essential to Void Of Vision that they’re remembered as they went out: at their peak.

The last thing they wanted was to fizzle out, their fans no longer caring about their music. Bergin explains, “Having this be the last thing we ever put out to leave for everyone over time to see this fully realised band at their best; that’s how I would want to be remembered.

“It’s a nice legacy to leave behind. You’re not fading or fizzling out; you’re going out on top and in the best way possible. I think everyone understands and respects our decision. I don’t know; it’s a nice little gem for future generations to come across, I think.”

Void Of Vision, forever on top.

Void Of Vision will embark on their farewell tour across Australia this month. You can find tickets via the Destroy All Lines website.

Destroy All Lines & Open Door Management Present